Wikipedia is viewed by many[citation needed] to be an inferior reference, because anyone can edit its pages. I disagree that it is, and find that much relevant information is expertly written, and the fact that it can be corrected by anyone may sometimes improve its reliability.
Referenced information can change through later edits, and that is a problem. If a paper is influential enough to induce changes in an applicable wiki, the paper may end up referencing itself, which we all know can cause pretty serious spacetime anomalies. However, these issues can resolved by referencing a specific dated version of a wiki page.
So it's settled. Citing wikipedia is no problem. I decided to do so and before finishing the paper, found that my first reference no longer existed. That is a problem!
It turned out that the entire topic that I'd referenced was deleted, because it "appears to be original research and has no relevant citations". Unfortunately, old versions of any deleted pages are not publicly visible, in case they contain plagiarized material. The irony of course is that if the page is correctly deleted because it is original material, it is incorrectly hidden because it might not be! In this case, the information must be removed from public sight because it might be both original and copied.
It must be an indication of unreliability if your wikipedia reference ends up deleted. If the wiki is well-cited, it might be better to copy the citations from the wiki rather than reference the wiki itself. If it is not well-cited, it might be better to include the "original research" in your paper.
This is an example of perverse results of the law of unintended consequences; Pages are purged from view to prevent copyright infringement, making it now preferable to copy information from a wiki page than to properly cite it.
Wikipedia seems to be trying to avoid being a citable reference.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
More Tips on Writing a Bad Crackpot Paper
Continued from a previous post...
- Don't worry about being able to understand what you're writing. The point of a paper isn't to figure it all out (especially the maths and the experimental verification, which of course can be left to someone else to contribute), but to explain things as you see them, so that some other "smart" scientist is able to figure out if you're right or not. It is best to use as many obscure technical words as you can, which increases the chance that the paper will inspire in someone an idea of what you might be talking about. Also, those who can't make sense of your technical jargon will nevertheless be impressed by it, and will commit themselves to putting in the extra time needed to figure it out. Essentially, if you think your theory might have anything to do with some words that you've heard before, use those words, and hopefully someone will see how you might be right. Eg. "Unified Theory of Quantum Super-symmetry" sounds excellent.
- If you can't explain it concisely, then explain it repetitively. If this were easy to explain, it wouldn't be a work of genius, now would it!? If an explanation doesn't come out right the first time, keep adding to it. Try different wording, too. If you try to convey the same idea many times, eventually it's going to make sense to someone.
- It's okay to be vague. Intelligent readers can fill in the details themselves (again, applies to maths, specific results, etc.).
Monday, May 28, 2012
Metabeing
1. The Economy is a metahuman.
I've become increasingly suspicious of the phrase "It's good for the economy." Whom does this Economy represent? It is not individuals who benefit directly when the Economy does well, yet most feel their livelihoods depend on the Economy being looked after first and foremost, no matter how indirectly (how low one is on the ladder) one's own well-being is impacted by Its well-being.
The Economy seems to be an artificial being, created by humans, and increasingly given greater importance over its creators. Sacrifice yourselves; protect the Economy! I imagine this is what it must have felt like for single-celled organisms to begin organizing into multi-celled organisms, and to increasingly give up their own interests for the sake of the collective Being. And I'm sure that those single cells thought about it and realized what was happening, about the same amount that humans seem to. Perhaps these cells increasingly gave up their individuality until some moment when they were no longer functional alone. At that point the collective becomes a necessity, and doing what's best for the Being is what is best for the individual. Are we there yet with the Economy? Are we able to live completely care-free and ruled only by individual will, or must we put the Economy first in order to make survival as an individual possible? We are still individual cells, but we cannot survive without the collective we've become.
2. A metahuman is not a human.
Cells come together to form a Being, which will have some goals similar to the cells and some goals that are completely new. Similarly, the metahuman that is formed by a collection of humans will have its own goals that do not apply to individual humans. In the case of the Economy, unrestrained and unrelenting growth is an example of a non-goal of a human body.
We expected the metahuman to be something created in our likeness. Namely we expected it to be The Singularity. We pictured it very human-like---a brain in a computer that thinks the way we do, and perhaps takes over from its creators by scheming the way we do. And it would be like this because we were to design it. It would be like us because we would make it that way. But as we all know, beings are evolved, not designed. A metahuman, whether a Singularity or an Economy, will not have human goals because we made it so, but rather it will possess evolved, metahuman, inhuman goals.
I don't think we can plan it. I don't even know if we could kill it. But I think we can observe it, as cells, and watch or even steer to a degree the evolution of the metabeing that will make us obsolete except as interchangeable parts.
What goals might the Economy be evolving on its own? Unsustainable growth is unsustainable and would need to be evolved out one way or another, but what other goals might be imagined using the multi-celled Being as an analogy?
I've become increasingly suspicious of the phrase "It's good for the economy." Whom does this Economy represent? It is not individuals who benefit directly when the Economy does well, yet most feel their livelihoods depend on the Economy being looked after first and foremost, no matter how indirectly (how low one is on the ladder) one's own well-being is impacted by Its well-being.
The Economy seems to be an artificial being, created by humans, and increasingly given greater importance over its creators. Sacrifice yourselves; protect the Economy! I imagine this is what it must have felt like for single-celled organisms to begin organizing into multi-celled organisms, and to increasingly give up their own interests for the sake of the collective Being. And I'm sure that those single cells thought about it and realized what was happening, about the same amount that humans seem to. Perhaps these cells increasingly gave up their individuality until some moment when they were no longer functional alone. At that point the collective becomes a necessity, and doing what's best for the Being is what is best for the individual. Are we there yet with the Economy? Are we able to live completely care-free and ruled only by individual will, or must we put the Economy first in order to make survival as an individual possible? We are still individual cells, but we cannot survive without the collective we've become.
2. A metahuman is not a human.
Cells come together to form a Being, which will have some goals similar to the cells and some goals that are completely new. Similarly, the metahuman that is formed by a collection of humans will have its own goals that do not apply to individual humans. In the case of the Economy, unrestrained and unrelenting growth is an example of a non-goal of a human body.
We expected the metahuman to be something created in our likeness. Namely we expected it to be The Singularity. We pictured it very human-like---a brain in a computer that thinks the way we do, and perhaps takes over from its creators by scheming the way we do. And it would be like this because we were to design it. It would be like us because we would make it that way. But as we all know, beings are evolved, not designed. A metahuman, whether a Singularity or an Economy, will not have human goals because we made it so, but rather it will possess evolved, metahuman, inhuman goals.
I don't think we can plan it. I don't even know if we could kill it. But I think we can observe it, as cells, and watch or even steer to a degree the evolution of the metabeing that will make us obsolete except as interchangeable parts.
What goals might the Economy be evolving on its own? Unsustainable growth is unsustainable and would need to be evolved out one way or another, but what other goals might be imagined using the multi-celled Being as an analogy?
- The collective is more important than the individual. Our lives are secondary to the health of the Economy.
- The collective may need to sacrifice groups of cells. No need to go into morbid details; safe to say this already happens.
- The collective has goals that the cells are incapable of understanding. The Economy might have plans that we could not even possibly understand.
- The collective becomes the individual, but then may become just a cell in another collective. If we end up creating multiple individual economies, will they begin to interact and form a Meta-economy that we couldn't even fathom at this point? And so on, until we're no longer cells in a Being, but only quarks in an atom in a molecule in a cell in a Being.
And so... ?
I hadn't yet figured out where I was going with this...
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The problem with Why
I've heard it said that "Why?" is not a question for science, but a question for philosophy. Science is only about the "What". It describes the behavior of things, not the reasons for it.
That's simply not true. Science answers every "Why" question that it can competently answer, and it would answer more questions if we had more knowledge to be able to.
The issue comes up a lot with quantum mechanics, such as "Why is a photon's behavior probabilistic for example in the double-slit experiment?"
It is however not necessarily a problem of "not enough knowledge".
I think that one of the main problems with "Why?" is that the asker is not just looking for a cause or a description of a mechanism as an answer to the question, but instead is unintentionally asking "What explanation is there that can be described in terms of things that I've experienced?" The asker is looking for a "common sense" answer, and there is no reason why every physical phenomenon should have an analogue in human experience. Thus, it may be that a satisfactory answer for something like "Why do things behave probabilistically?" might not exist in common-sense English, using words that describe things that we experience directly.
The answer to every "Why?" might be "That's the way it is." It might not be possible to always break down the answer into simple-to-visualize concepts.
Addendum: To paraphrase Richard Feynman, "why?" is not a good question to ask, because it can be asked again of any answer given, until eventually there is no possible answer. However, I feel there is no problem in answering every "why?" that can be answered, so long as the asker understands that not all of them can be.
That's simply not true. Science answers every "Why" question that it can competently answer, and it would answer more questions if we had more knowledge to be able to.
The issue comes up a lot with quantum mechanics, such as "Why is a photon's behavior probabilistic for example in the double-slit experiment?"
It is however not necessarily a problem of "not enough knowledge".
I think that one of the main problems with "Why?" is that the asker is not just looking for a cause or a description of a mechanism as an answer to the question, but instead is unintentionally asking "What explanation is there that can be described in terms of things that I've experienced?" The asker is looking for a "common sense" answer, and there is no reason why every physical phenomenon should have an analogue in human experience. Thus, it may be that a satisfactory answer for something like "Why do things behave probabilistically?" might not exist in common-sense English, using words that describe things that we experience directly.
The answer to every "Why?" might be "That's the way it is." It might not be possible to always break down the answer into simple-to-visualize concepts.
Addendum: To paraphrase Richard Feynman, "why?" is not a good question to ask, because it can be asked again of any answer given, until eventually there is no possible answer. However, I feel there is no problem in answering every "why?" that can be answered, so long as the asker understands that not all of them can be.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Guide to writing a bad crackpot paper
- The abstract should introduce the topic on which you will be speaking. The first couple sentences should read like those of a wikipedia entry on the related branch of science, in case the reader has never heard of that branch before. Your target audience doesn't know anything about science; they are blank pages ready to be filled with your knowledge! General statements alluding to great accomplishments made in the paper are good because they build anticipation, but no specific details should be given in an abstract. It is better not to spoil the surprise!
- Ensure to include an acknowledgments section, but acknowledge only yourself. This emphasizes your "lone wolf" status. Impressing the reader is paramount, and the reader will understand the gravity of the paper's genius when she realizes that you did this all by yourself.
An allowed exception is to acknowledge God for His contributions to and inspirations for your work. - End on an inspirational note. Scientists are very dogmatic, and may not accept your work... mainly due to prejudice. It may sway their favor to remind them of Galileo or other revolutionaries who, like you, also wrote groundbreaking papers that bucked the standard. Some readers need to be reminded to keep an open mind, or that a positive, accepting attitude will make them feel better than would remaining a curmudgeony old scientist.
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